My Mocking Happiness

St James Theatre

A Part of National Theatre of Kiev’s Russian Language Season at St. James Theatre.
This production will be performed in Russian and will be live-dubbed in English to be enjoyed in either language.
“My Mocking Happiness” is drawn from Anton Chekhov’s personal correspondence with his wife, Olga Knipper-Chekhova, and close friend, Lika Mizinova. Alive with intimate and personal detail, the letters reveal the writer’s complex inner life – his musings on theatre, art, 20th century psychology, society and power. He also discusses his timeless dramas “Uncle Vanya”, “Three Sisters” and “The Cherry Orchard”. Structurally similar to Jerome Kilty’s 1960 play “Dear Liar”, “My Mocking Happiness” has been staged at Kiev’s Lesya Ukrainka Theatre for more than fifty years.

This production was devised by none other than David Borovsky, among the greatest scenographers of the 20th century. Borovsky represents the reminiscences of Olga Knipper-Chekhova in the sounds of the pipe organ which was playing in the church nearby the Chekhov home in Badenweiler on the night when the great writer passed. The instrument is constructed on stage with birch trees standing in for the ranks of organ pipes, and it is here that all the action takes place. The performance closes with the thought: “A conversation about the Earth, a thousand years from now, on some other planet: Do you remember those white trees…those birches?”